Relationships Over Roles: 25 Years, Six Careers, One Through-line with Nate Smith | EP008

Nate Smith has been a bricklayer, a youth-camp cabin builder, a World Vision hunger-awareness speaker, a business development hunter who landed the Mob Museum branding from a radio story, and a junior diplomat who helped end the Cold War (he has receipts). Now he runs strategy at Gray Matter, a manufacturing innovation firm — and he thinks the career isn't the point.

In this conversation, Brooks sits down with a 25-year friend and colleague to trace the invisible line that runs through a life that looks, on paper, like six different careers. What emerges is something quieter and more interesting: a philosophy of legacy as logistics, curiosity as a career strategy, and "leaving the place better than you found it" as the whole game.

We cover:
• Why Nate traded two buckets of mortar for a Mac-training gig at his dad's design firm (and how that changed everything)
• The Paul Rand lineage — growing up with the godfather of modern graphic design as his father's mentor
• Getting a Soviet tennis coach to fix his backhand in five minutes, then losing 6-0, 6-1 to a 12-year-old in front of a stadium
• What World Vision and the 30-Hour Famine taught him about meaning, mattering, and working for a cause instead of applause
• Hearing about the Mob Museum on NPR, calling Las Vegas that afternoon, and beating 40 firms to win the branding
• Using AI to rewrite songs he recorded on a four-track 36 years ago — and writing his wife a 25th anniversary song called "Love You By The Numbers"
• The psycho-spy thriller novel he's writing with Claude about Bitcoin as a Soviet weapon
• Why his dream isn't a better title — it's being a better dad, husband, and neighbor
• The 40-foot pine tree in his yard that became a neighborhood Christmas tradition

This is The New F Word — where F stands for Flourishing. Real talk about living well with warmth, curiosity, and just enough irreverence to keep it human.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONNECT WITH NATE SMITH
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathangsmith/
Email (for music, novels, or non-work chats): nate.smith@me.com 
Gray Matter: https://graymattersystems.com/

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PRESENTED BY BARYONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
If this episode got you thinking about legacy, relationships, or what gets passed down, that's one of the many uses of your Baryon. Baryons is the first AI Flourishing Partner, built to help you think through the things that matter. Start free at baryons.com.

#TheNewFWord #Flourishing #Baryons #NateSmith #CareerJourney #Legacy #Storytelling #AIandCreativity #Manufacturing #Mentorship #Podcast #BrooksCanavesi

Baryons is your Flourishing Partner. You call, it listens, and together you design what's next. Science-backed. Patent Pending. Start for free with your Baryon today at Baryons.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:09

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the new F Word Podcast. I'm your host, Brooks Canavesi, and I am honored to be here today with a longtime friend of mine and colleague, Nate Smith. Hi, Nate. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hey, Brooks.

SPEAKER_04 0:23

Good. Good. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Well, thanks for being here. It is an honor and a privilege to have you on. We've known each other for decades at this point, and it's been super fun to follow your family and follow your career. Just to give you a brief intro, um, Nate Smith is a strategist who's spent 25 years learning that relationships outlast roles. His career started in the nonprofit world with World Vision, cultivating donor partnerships across a 22-state region, before winding through branding agencies, tech startups, design consultancies, and now he's in manufacturing innovation at Gray Matter. So welcome to the pod, Nate.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

It's been quite a journey. Yeah, just thinking about all of that, you know, kind of knowing that we were gonna chat through some histories of things, you know, realizing that over 30 years ago I was just coming out of college, figuring out what I was gonna do. Like 30 years. That's crazy. Like I just I still think I still think of myself as 25. I'm not, I'm 54. But like, you know, it's in our minds, we never quite let go of that that younger version of ourselves in a lot of ways. But that may be a good thing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

I mean, my wife still thinks I act like I'm 17. I think mentally, I'm probably right around there, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

You you do. I I know where you go on vacation and what you do for fun. It's you're definitely still in that zone, which is great.

SPEAKER_04 1:51

Yeah, as I talked to you with multiple. Every time my skateboard's behind me, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

You know, um so yeah, I'm every time I see somebody doing something crazy export-ish, I'm like, oh, that's Brooks. There you go. Like, you know, some new flying vehicle, or you know, you it's it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_04 2:09

Yeah, completely off topic. But I did see that they're working on a hoverboard, so it's on wheels, but it has this magnetic lift where you can like basically go on that buffer zone between like opposite magnets. So they're working on it where we might actually get the hoverboards, it'll still be like terrestrial rolling based, but um, and I did just order an antic bike, which is like a two-wheel, one-wheel that has a wheelie move. So basically, when you get into a wheelie, it turns into a one-wheel, and you can just like go for miles. So I'm pretty stoked about that.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, that that's that's you, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

Tell us tell the the audience a little bit about how you're arriving today. Like what what season of life are you in? What's going on?

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, so I'm married with three kids. I have a 19-year-old that's gonna turn 20 real soon here. He's actually studying to be a rocket scientist. Um he got mathematical skills that didn't even come close to my my category, but uh he's working hard. I have a 16-year-old daughter who's gonna be taken to the streets pretty soon with her license. That's scary. I know you just had one of your kids cross that milestone as well. And then I've got Sam, my youngest, and he's golfing and playing baseball and building stuff in Minecraft that I don't even know to begin how to explain how to build it. It's actual engineering. Like he's the platform that Minecraft has developed is really pretty incredible. That's a whole other topic, but the command blocks, the scripting that they're learning in there, that the kids are just like, oh, I'm gonna build something that has pistons and that uses reverse energy. I I'm not even speaking correctly about it, but that's as close as I can get. It's it's amazing the the things that they can do. But uh yeah, and my wife Bethana and I, we just spent the weekend moving mulch around the property. I mean, you know, good, exciting suburban life. But it was a really good workout. My legs are sore today for sure. Like 30 plus wheelbarrels will do that to you. But uh, yeah, you know, we're we're in the the prime of our adult life, I think, really, when it comes right down to it. You know, we're established, we're growing. Every chapter with the kids is unwritten and unscripted for sure. I think we're I still look for the manual for how to raise the kids. There isn't one. I expect there to be some note that comes in and tells me, all right, do this next, but it doesn't exist. And uh but that's part of the fun, right? You know, you you lean in, you love them, you live life with grace and keep moving forward with it. So it's it's a good time to be.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

That's beautiful. Tell me a little bit about your first step into your career. So like coming into this now, and and I knew when you had your children because you know, your oldest and my oldest are pretty much the same age. So when we met, they were both newborns, basically, and we've watched them grow up together. But that's you know, now at this phase, you know, when you were coming out at that same age, 19, right? You know, you came out of I think Grove City College, and you know, you're you're in there.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Well, actually had a earlier stop first. Okay. Uh yeah, went went to Ohio University, met some great people, uh, had some interesting times there, but I just was not focused at all. I didn't I didn't party myself out of school. I just I probably made friends out of that school too much, was probably where I was. I was just not not so short, not uh focused academically, you could say. Um and there were some values there that were different than what I was looking to find, and so just wasn't a fit for me. Um but I left there, went and built cabins in the woods of Ligonier for half a year, and decided that I definitely wanted to finish my education. Um, but that was such a great experience. Like it was a camp ligoneer. Uh they had these cabins from the 40s that were falling apart. And I went up in late February, and Al Knock was the camp director there, and he taught me how to build every single piece of those cabins. And so under the covered pavilion during the wet, cold March month, I built kits for 33 cabins along with a couple other guys. And then once the weather weather broke, we went out and started building them like an Amish barn raising. We'd do probably two to three a week by the time we got the full crew. Um, we were rolling. And uh, you know, great, great times. Um, the camp ladies would make us whatever food we wanted. The sticky buns were amazing. Um you were in the best shape of your life, guaranteed. Oh my gosh, absolutely, yeah. Like, no doubt. And then, you know, continued to use construction to get myself in shape. When I met my wife, I was working as a bricklayer with this little Italian bricklayer dude who was building brick houses on spec. It was me and him, and that was it. And I was the only technology that we had, there were no like, you know, big mixers to mix the mortar or the concrete. It was just stirring, and we had buckets and tongs and a ladder. There was no pulleys, and it was a three-story house. So I'm carrying two tongs of bricks or two five-gallon buckets of mortar up and down that ladder every day. I was ripped when I met my wife. She said it was false advertising, which she's probably for sure. I'll I'll say guilty as guilty as as as charge. But hey, you know, she we played kickball together and I hit home runs every single time, and she was just like, that guy gets up in the morning, he goes to it, he's just absolutely ripped. And uh I it worked 25 years later, we're still married and enjoying each other, but I'm just not quite to that level of physique that she um encountered at first.

SPEAKER_04 8:24

So well, your your daily work is is not nearly the same level of physical output.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

No, this versus yeah, carrying you know five-gallon buckets. I don't know how much a five-gallon bucket full of mortar weighs, but it's it's a lot.

SPEAKER_04 8:39

It's more than your mouse, I can tell you that much.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Oh, 100%. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 8:44

Yeah, I can tell you because my son's doing it right now in the union. He's a he's a stonemason and he's 19 and he's on the job site, and he's the worm, right? He's the newbie, right? So it's like, hey kid, carry the the mortar up the scaffolding, right? Hey, kid, go grind metal for you know 10 hours.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

But the interesting thing was I got a call from my father later in mid that summer, and he said, Hey, we're really struggling here. We've hired some new people at our office and they don't understand the computer systems. Would you be able to come in and help teach them how to use a Mac? And I was like, Well would you pay me? And he's like, Well, what are you making now? And I told him, and he's like, How about double that and you can come in and work at our office? And I was like, sold. So I went from two buckets to double the money and using this little guy to make the money. Um, and I taught people in the office how to use Mac systems, network, folder structures, but it really showed me an interesting way of, you know, how does technology drive a design firm? And my father's company was Agne Moyer Smith at that time. And uh, you know, so it was it was an interesting kind of behind-the-scenes look at, all right, here I am sitting with the the three founders of the company, you know, helping their assistants and other people in the office learn how to use the computer systems so that they could design amazing, amazing brands and uh, you know, really a legacy there.

SPEAKER_04 10:24

So it was how long had your dad been working in that industry when when you got that call?

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Agnew Moyersmith started in 1980. Um but he'd been working as a designer or manager of design of designers since the early 70s. They my family moved from Detroit to Pittsburgh when my dad got a job with Westinghouse, and he was the uh manager of the Westinghouse Design Center, which Westinghouse really had a unique thing going back in the day. So here at the Pittsburgh headquarters, they had the design center, and it was made up of architects, industrial designers, graphic designers, and um copywriters, writers. And so any product, any idea or initiative, if there was a new building that was going to be built, it came through the design center. The design center built it. If there was a new railroad system that was gonna be deployed somewhere, it came through the design system and they built it. Anything that had the Westinghouse logo on it came through there. It was really way ahead of its time. Um they brought in top designers in all those disciplines, had the mentor the people there. My father's mentor, one of them was Paul Rand, who, you know, you Google that if you don't know who that is. Um he's considered the the godfather of modern graphic design, the the CBSI logo, the Westinghouse logo. Um Steve Jobs tagged him to do his next uh computing brand whenever he was building that out.

unknown 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

I mean, just the UPS logo. Yeah. Yeah, you you name it, the guy did it. So wow. You know, I I grew up in a house that was always thinking about what does the brand mean for this? And it was more than just the look and feel of it. It was really what's the story that's behind it. And so learned a lot there for sure.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Um so at that point, um he'd been with Agnomar Smith for 13 years, I believe that was that point.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Um but uh yeah, uh learned a ton. I ended up interning at Agnemoy Smith, then Thought Forum for multiple summers after that. And um then even after after school, went back and was a marketing coordinator for them there. Um thought that that's where I would end up. Um I pitched them early on a business development job because they the principals were really the the top business development people. I wrote out a whole job description and showed them what it could be. And my father had just retired. And Reed Agnew and Don Moyer, I think in their real wisdom, said, No, Nate, this isn't a job for you. You need to go out and do something else on your own. And it was it was really wise on their part because I would have not had the diversity of experience that I would have had if I would have just stayed there. Um now, granted, a couple years later, they did post a business development director position, and it was word for word what I had given them. Um so, you know, at least I knew I was on the right path. Uh but uh yeah, it coming out of college, I had a marketing management degree from Grove City, you know, spinning back to the college journey after building cabins in the woods. Um and uh thought I was gonna be going to Chicago. A good friend of mine had gotten me an interview uh with an ad agency there, thought it was gonna work. In April, I got a call from him saying the entire team just got sacked.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

Uh sorry, not gonna work out, and uh was not sure what I was gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Then I got a phone call from this church outside of Baltimore, and they said, uh Nate, we'd like to fly you in for an interview. We really think that you're gonna be a perfect fit with our youth ministry program. Um, you know, your resume looks really, really sharp and strong, spot on. What dates are you available to to come in? We'd we'd like to fly in. I was like, my my resume? Like, yeah, you your resume, uh, Trey Miller submitted your resume to us, and uh I thought that I was like, oh yes, Trey, yes, he yes he did. Okay, great. Well, my good friend from Grove City, who we worked in the career services department with each other, his church needed a youth director. He thought Nate would be perfect for this. He submitted my resume, filled out an application, and it got me past the screeners into the next round. And at that point, especially at that age, if somebody offers to fly you somewhere, you're going. Like that that seemed like super cool. Um, so I ended up going down there, ended up not being the best fit in the world for me, but uh just was some differences of approach uh than where I was. But um yeah, so thanks, Trey, for that uh that encouragement back then. But uh came back home and uh went back to work for Plotform for a little while and then uh got recruited to go check out the World Vision opportunity, which again was a really unique one.

SPEAKER_04 16:06

Yeah, and you were building out their donor base and and world vision. I actually did some volunteer work there when I was in college. Um so you were probably the director there or something uh that I just didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah, I I reported out to Seattle to the headquarters, and they had three people like myself that they divide the country up, and we were supposed to target high school age kids, college-age kids, and schools, basically, to talk about what their program was, the 30-hour famine, which is still going today strong. It raises awareness about hunger and food insecurity around the world and gives young people a chance to fast. You know, kids, our culture don't really ever fast. You know, they say they're starving after missing, you know, two hours past lunch, but you know, feeling what real hunger feels like really made a big difference in a lot of kids' lives. And I got to travel around the country, got to meet leaders from across the world. I think one of my favorite was I met one of the penultimate chiefs from Ghana. So in in the country of Ghana, there are five uh tribes or five people groups, and each of them has a chief. And he came over and uh I got to take him out to dinner. I think I actually took him to Randy's, if you imagine that. Um but uh but he said he said, you know, if you came to Ghana, came to uh Ghana, I wouldn't be able to be out with you like this. Just there's protocols. But he said, but I would welcome you in. And and I said, Really? And he said, Yeah, he said, my job as chief is to make sure that there's never a stranger who isn't taken care of. So if there's a uh traveler coming through and somebody needs a bed, if you meet the chief or if you meet somebody, their culture says, we'll take care of you, we'll get you some food, we'll get you a place to rest. And he was sincere about it. And um that really stuck with me. Like, here's this guy that's you know one of five leaders of a country. Now, granted, there's the other, you know, God of government over the top of them now, but still, you know, they've been doing it for thousands of years. Um just a really unique uh perspective and something that I took away from that after meeting him. So pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 18:36

That's a phenomenal experience. When you think about the the fasting and and just kind of helping students kind of experience that, what were some of the stories, anything that stands out or perspective shifts that you heard during those travels of students going through that experience and just being like, I had no idea. Just coming from a Western civilization and you know, kind of uh upbringing like we have in suburban America or even, you know, urban America, like you said, two hours missing lunch, we're like, oh my gosh, I'm starving. Where's the next Chipotle? Like Yep.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

You know, there were kids that raised a lot of money in some cities, like the city of Charlotte. There was, I went down there for a couple of years and basically it felt like I was on a like a candidate election path. I would come in, I would go to an event, I would speak, it'd be like 500 kids that you know filling an auditorium. I'd shake hands, tell them what great job they were doing. I would get in the van, go to the next city, next space. It was like, you know, barn storing for a political campaign. It felt like, you know, you would walk in the speaker speaks, you'd shake hands, kiss babies. Um but seeing an entire city region kind of just really stand up and do something like that was pretty impressive impressive. Um but probably some of the most lasting memories, there was a kid from Nashville that they didn't have very much at all. They they weren't, you know, super rich, but they said that every year they would start fundraising. It normally happened in February, was the kind of the time frame of when the the famines were, the 30-hour famines. And he said they would start fundraising at Thanksgiving and literally going out door to door, talking to as many people as they could. They said, we just want to make sure people know. And they, you know, they raised a decent amount. It wasn't the most in my territory, but those kids just super, super genuine and hard workers of you know, getting the message out and um really, really impactful. One kid from Charlotte I ended up bringing up here to Pittsburgh to be my intern for summer when I was running camps down in West Virginia. Um and I lost track with him, but then connected with him when he was in town this past winter. Uh and uh so that that's pretty cool. Um yeah, yeah, there's just you meet people in those relationships weather through time and distance for sure.

SPEAKER_04 21:10

It reminds me of working for a cause, not applause. And that kind of statement of when you have, and so when you think about um positive psychology, like there's been a ton of work in flourishing science around positive psychology. And part of it is around obviously like positive emotions and engagement. One of the big things is around meaning or mattering, and when we can bring that to our workplace, so we have hobbies and some of us volunteer our time. Like this, you know, these kids in Tennessee, they they were like part of a cause. They had meaning. They had that they felt like they mattered when they were raising awareness around this.

unknown 21:53

Right.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

And that's such an important thing in today's employment perspective where. Employers that create that tangible link. And the nonprofits were the best at this, and they always have been. The ones that are successful. Like there was a book I read some years ago, and I'm spacing the name right now, but it was how like United Way kind of like revitalized itself with this new leader. And um, it was about building a tangible link between the donor base and and the outcomes, right? Like if you can build that tangible link, then people can feel you know connected to that. If people, and I've worked at companies like this where, you know, I mention this all the time. Dan Sullivan, FedEx Ground, RPS founder, best leader I ever worked for. Didn't matter who you were, how old you were, he built a tangible link between the employees and the packages that were delivered. And it was like, you're not just it was all about package delivery. Like that was quantity was a big thing because that's where revenue was generated. But he talked about you're delivering hearts to patients in need, donors, kidneys, custom critical, um, anniversary gifts right on time, right? Birthday presents, grandparents, like you know, like he he made the package have meaning. And when you can build that and have that meaning and purpose. So as we're talking about this and and reflecting on it, like you were part of that and you saw it firsthand. How has that affected your rest of your career? And how do you bring that today, like into your worldview of because you're working for like, you know, technology and manufacturing, but like, and I've heard you say it, like when you talk about your customers, which we won't say here their names, but like when you talk about your customer engagements, you look at like, oh, they're delivering something custom, like very critical to the food service supply chain or to the military supply chain or something else. So talk a little bit about like how that's affected and how you kind of bring that forward.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah, working for World Vision was such an honor. Um, you know, and the the people that were there were just super dedicated to what they were doing. But it was this gigantic worldwide logistics and education network. You know, and I'm a I'm a big hero of history. Um, and so, you know, when I look at World War II as every 50-year-old man, you know, does uh you know, the those wars were won because of our logistics and because of the the heart of the people that were out there fighting in front of them. And you know, I read a story the other day that Germans captured some mail, and in the mail they unwrapped packages of fresh brownies. And they're like, fresh brownies? We couldn't even get a fresh brownie across Germany. And this has come from Indiana, and it was sent four days ago. How in the world did this like they realized very quickly that there was a real big trouble in you know the distance of logistics, and that's you know, borne out in uh lots of different things. Engineering was great, but their logistics were was in real trouble. But that principle of logistics of how do you sequence, how do you transfer things forward, whether it's ideas or whether it's an actual product, really is important. And I've I've thought about that in in my jobs and um and really just kind of in in life as a whole. What is it that I'm doing that can I can transfer on to somebody else? So I I look at my son now, he's gone off to college, and he's he's gonna be a a rocket scientist, at least, at least for now. And um, you know, but I talked to him and I can see the things that he's really interested in. Like he got down there and he's in his dorm for the first time, and there were some of the bathrooms that were having a mildew issue, and he's got allergies, and he was like, this just isn't right. They need to make sure these bathrooms are clean. And so he started this petition in the dorms and was fighting for justice for you know the kids down on the campus and making sure that they were gonna be living in a clean space that was, you know, passing all the all the required checks. But um, you know, I I hope that when people look back at you know my kids and the legacy that I've had, that it's been similar to you know, a line of logistics that just has been there's been transfers, there's been energy pushed forward, goodwill, good faith, um that's come along that that line, not simply just uh a fight or a battle here or there, but it's been something that's you know positive in that regard. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_04 26:55

Totally. And your family has that legacy for sure, from a creativity standpoint, a genuine authenticity standpoint, you know, hearing the stories of of your father and and what he did at Westinghouse and the company he kept at Westinghouse and the great work that they did, um, that creativity was infused in you, in your family. Like it just you couldn't get away from it. It was osmosis.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:24

And you've brought that forward and you've influenced me, you've influenced others that you've come across in your workforce uh, you know, endeavors as you've gone through your career, that you've had a positive impact on them. I can speak for myself. You had a positive impact on me from a creativity, a storytelling perspective, the importance of that. And that's something that, you know, again, you picked up from your father, and you're also now allowing your children to have that same, you know, experience, and you're bringing that forward, and they're having now effects in their dorm rooms, in their dormitories at freshman year. And like when you say your son's studying to be a rocket scientist, like some people might be like, Oh, really? Like, no, for for real.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Like astrophysics, like rocket propulsion systems, engineering, like Emory Riddle, like Yeah, his his dream is that he can be part of the team that builds some of the propulsion systems that go explore Mars or space in general, you know, maybe get there. And he's at Emory Riddle University down on Daytona Beach. Everybody's like, oh, Daytona Beach. I was like, no, really, these guys, there's it's not Daytona Beach spring break, it's Daytona Beach rocket building. Like it's it's an intense place, and he's uh he's he's learned what that means this year, and it's it's been good. I've I've loved to see the the growth that's been in him. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:48

Um I was just down there in February, and I was driving through from um Cocoa Beach going a little bit south, and I drove past what was the old Air Force base, but it's now Space Force. Yeah, it's right there. And I was like, hmm, because I used to tell my kids all the time, like, I want you to get an athletic scholarship, that would be great. Help pay for school. You don't get that, I'd like you to get an academic scholarship, that'd be great, help you pay for school. If you don't get that, I'd like you to go to the Air Force because that'll help you pay for school, and they're gonna teach you a whole bunch of like useful tools. You could become a pilot, you could become a medic, you could become this, whatever. Cyber, you know, whatever, whatever. But now I'm like Space Force is where it's at. Like you're at Cocoa Beach, you're on the beach, right? You're probably not going to space in the next four years. Like, you might be working on some cool stuff, but you're probably not going there. So, you know, and you get GI Bill, all the things. Like, I was like, that's kind of like would he consider that after school? Is that a thing?

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Uh he's not sure yet. I've I've pushed into him hard to look for internships when he's eligible, because both SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin have all invested heavily in every riddle as a whole. The labs are brand new. Like the place is it's it's astounding. Because they they need US-born citizens that can help them meet their ITAR requirements and they need it now. And they're just trying to build up and build up and get things going. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:31

You have you have the bigs, right? You have Lockheed, you have Raytheon, you have the the big government, old school GC, right? Then you have the new boys, you have Andrel, right? And they're building a huge plant, right? You and I know in Columbus. And then in addition to that, you have all of the the new things, and SpaceX is going public, probably IPO this summer that's coming up. You have Blue Origin, as you mentioned, and you have a whole bunch of other players that are in it or getting in it right now because it the next thing the supply chain that's building all this, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Exactly. Yeah. It's an exciting time. Um, like I've always been a you know space geek of you know, from the time that I had my little Lego sets with the little spacemen, Benny and the spaceman. You know, I thought rockets were amazing. I remember I was home from school the day that the challenger blew up, and I watched that live on TV, and it was pretty impactful. Um, you know, but just uh I think that space exploration is something that our country needs. We we've always been explorers, we've always been frontiersmen at the heart, you know, of our our country. I think we need that. Like there's unless we're gonna be going into the oceans, which also would be pretty cool, um, you know, there's not much else that's unexplored these days. Uh space is tough, but uh I think it's a I think it's a good thing that we're we're pushing those frontiers.

SPEAKER_04 32:08

Right now we're having some conversations in our house about mass drivers on the moon, Dyson spheres. Like, so this is all the new things that are being talked about in the AI community um as we're looking at what Elon's doing and and others from not just from a AGI perspective and superintelligence perspective, but like what's the next frontier? How do we leverage AI to you know build data centers in space? I mean, you see all this news, it's kind of hard to keep up with the the pace in which it's moving. But it does make sense, economical sense, that if you can move mass from the moon at one-sixth the gravitational force, that's much less expensive to get things to Mars, let's say, raw material-wise, than using propulsion from Earth's gravitational pool to get it to Mars or to stage it at the moon and so on. Because you can just use solar to basically energize a rail gun, which is a mass track, which is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yep. Yeah. Well, not not to say too, like we don't know what's in the moon really completely either. There could be minerals, there could be asteroid deposits there that you know we have no idea about. So that whole new exploration of the moon is is really pretty fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 33:29

Have you watched, I think it's on Apple TV. Is it for all mankind?

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Yes. Historical fiction, interesting, interesting thing for sure. Um I sometimes see around the corners where they're going with an idea. I'm like, all right, yeah, come on. Like that's a little bit much, but but yeah, the whole the whole premise is really pretty cool. Just the idea of if we hadn't given up.

SPEAKER_04 33:55

Yeah, in that 50 years. Longer, right? Yep. That that we have not, but it's so cool. Yeah. I watched all the Artemis stuff, was super stoked to see our astronauts go back and and make that trip and then come down safely and everything. It was really phenomenal. It's a great feather in the cap and and achievement for NASA to to finally put a new mark. Um, I think it'll just be even more amazing as you know, we get Starship and some of the new things from SpaceX that are are gonna make travel and just the amount of flights, like the amount of things that go out of Cape Carnaval right now. Like your son probably got to see a hundred rocket launches this year. And that was not the case when we were kids.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Yeah, he said it's pretty common. You just hear sonic boom and oh, they're putting out something today. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:52

Right. Like they're just used to it. And like when I go down to Cocoa or Daytona or in that region, right? Like, because we have a place in Orlando, when we go over, I'm always checking the schedule, just be like, well, they're probably setting something off this morning or this evening.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

I remember in high school I watched a shuttle launch from Cocoa Beach, and uh it was just I mean, we were that far away from Cape Carnaval, but still the ground shook. And you just like uh it's just a lot of power.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

So cool. Good stuff. So, yeah, as we kind of were rounding out some career journey stuff, um, when you left World Vision, um, talk about that transition. You know, obviously you had a tech background as early as college days, working at Thought Forum and helping them with their Mac computers, you know, what kind of was the next trajectory into technology and and where did you go next?

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Well, I um I didn't forget about that business development idea. And I'd pitched it to some other agencies in town as well, Waldwell Studios being one of them, and uh knew the the founding partners there, really great guys. And uh I just felt like I wanted to do something that was creative and hands-on. And I've talked with my brother, and both of us have said, you know, we really in our heart of hearts just really wanted to be dad. And so, you know, carrying on that that legacy was something that you know was in my my background and in my blood, so to speak. Um but ended up at Waldwell Studios in a business development role. Um had a great run there. Um probably the most fun episode there was when I heard a story on NPR about the mob museum being developed out in Las Vegas, and thought that sounds like the coolest thing ever. And Wall of Wall had done a lot of work in museums and really cool kind of avant-garde branding. And um, so when I got back to the office, I called up the city of Las Vegas and said, Where's the bid on the branding for the mob museum? And they said, Well, it's still open. It's like, great, send me the RFE package. And wall-to-wall went for it. We competed against 40 other firms from across the country, and we won. And so we got to do all the initial branding and storytelling for the mob museum. There was a museum development company that was doing all the exhibits, but you know, in terms of the logo and what what the merchandise looked like, and uh what's the what's the way to describe this unique museum, which was, if you don't know, it's it was founded by Oscar Goodman, who played himself uh in Casino as the the mob lawyer that got uh Tony Spilagro off the uh his charges, and the director of the FBI that broke down the mob in Las Vegas. So those two, you know, the mob lawyer and the FBI director came in and started this museum. And uh so it's the story of how the FBI went after the mob, curtailed it, and then you know, moved forward. But it it touches on organized crime across the world, um, everything from you know cartels to Russian mobs to pirates back in the day. It touches on different places there. But uh fascinating place. If you're ever in Las Vegas, you gotta check it out. It's downtown old old school Las Vegas. But uh that was a that was a really fun win um just to you know get that you know where it's like when you have an idea and you're like, oh, I think I could target those people, I think I can get it, and then you actually go get it and you hustle and you you win it. That's uh that's a good feeling.

SPEAKER_04 38:40

That's such a good feeling to go from inception, right? Like you literally were listening to the radio, you heard this, and turned that into an active project that you guys won, outcompeted on many other national or international firms. Yeah. Such a and and wall to wall, you know, such a great brand experience. I still tell stories to this day about rocket logos that you mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Um it's one of my favorites of all yeah, we'll maybe have that on a separate story, but yeah, that's that's a good one. Yeah. Lots of lots of really good good work there.

SPEAKER_04 39:13

Such great work that you guys did. Um so after wall-to-wall, what was what was kind of the next step, you know, before you got into this manufacturing role that you were in? You had some technology stints, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yeah, I I went through uh a startup company that was doing some really unique work on kind of the job and recruiting front of things. Um turns out I didn't really like startup culture very much. It was very much burn, get rid of the churn, numbers without people. Like it was just pure, pure numbers. And private equity demands that. And, you know, it wasn't where I wanted to be. And uh the the founder of that organization, I just decided this wasn't the best fit for me. And so moved on from there. Uh worked for my brother in startup world for a little while, uh, worked at a church helping them start up a modern service, like an a kind of old traditional Presbyterian church, wanted to do something new and dynamic. I'm a musician, and so, you know, basically had a two-year period where I was a non-ordained pastor, playing music, preaching once a month, um, and really started this new service there. And it was, it was so fun. Got to lead a full team, full creative drive of naming the new service, design the space, picking out the technology for the sound system and for all the computer systems, and designed the logo and you know, the whole, the whole package. It was it was a great two years. Uh nonprofit work though does not pay the bills very well. And uh Bethana and I were expecting our first child, Steven, and so you know, had to leave that behind. But uh, did a lot of things in between. Um then you and I met together, worked together for five strong years. Um, you know, and I I still am in touch with a lot of the people that you know were on that design team and the marketing team that we had there. Um fact we all just went to a concert a month ago together. Um so good good fun overall. Um but through that is where I met Maya and then was able to work with them for a little over a year. And uh, like you said, then they got acquired by BCG, and there wasn't really a fit for me at that point either. Um and then a short time later, had another stint kind of finding my way, but then got recruited to go to uh Gray Matter.

SPEAKER_04 41:58

You've been there now what seven years?

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Seven years. Seven years. That's it. That holds the mark right now for you, for sure. I think so. It's the longest, longest run. You you know, if you're if you're not from a sales background, people think, why don't you have a one job that you just start at and then retire at? And that's just not the way that the sales world works or entrepreneurism works. You know, so you five years is is probably about the average that people hang out. So I've I've I've broken the average, I think. But um yeah, Grey Matter is an exciting company. Um, we're growing like crazy. Um and uh I tell people that my job is a little bit like living another episode of how it's made every day. I get to uh go see some other manufacturing process. Last week I was in a candy factory, literally up in Detroit, and uh watching chocolates and stuff be made that was awesome. Uh shout out to Solidar's uh candies in Detroit. Um you know, just really, really unique stuff. But then another week I might be at a chemical factory, or I might be at uh uncrustables plant or whatever it might be. I've got a lot of different customers. But um, you know, like you said earlier, it's it's pretty amazing. We across the gray matter world, we're securing water systems, we're helping with cybersecurity for manufacturing. The manufacturing world is under attack to these days by bad actors from across the world. And we're kind of at the forefront of defending that and making sure that, again, those supply chains are maintained for our country and for those around the world. So it's it's pretty uh it's pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_04 43:48

And you get to work on efficiencies within these manufacturing systems. So you like you said, how things are made, like episodes, you get to learn the intricacies of the supply chain, Rob. Materials coming in, how that's transformed into how products, how that gets stored, how that gets shipped, where it goes kind of end to end, like grade over grave on a product life cycle. And then the technology that you're employing is to help those overall recipes and those processes and procedures, you know, maintain their efficiency and be quality controlled and also instrumented. And that just seems like such a fascinating thing for someone like you that's so curious. And I think that's probably your superpower that you bring to something like that. You legitimately want to know. Like you ask the right questions, you want to know. And I think that makes the best salespeople on the planet are those that are like genuinely curious about the process because then they know that they can provide value by understanding better. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Yeah, like in the candy factory last week, we were talking about how the salted caramels are are made and and you're melting the chocolate, and there's a certain point where you the chocolate has to be viscous enough in order to maintain its bond with the caramel and the candy. And I thought to myself, wait a minute, I know this process. Our family, every birthday, we make chocolate fudge cake, and it's a handmade fudge frosting that you boil the chocolate in the butter and you get it going just right. If you've ever made fudge of any kind, you know that there's a point where you have to begin to stir it to a rolling boil, and then you have to control the temperature dive off of that boil to actually you're breaking down the chocolate and the cream molecules so that they bond together properly and you get that smooth, velvety fudge. If you don't do it right, you end up with kind of a drippy, sticky goo as opposed to that nice fudge that everybody wants. So I'm thinking about this. I'm like, wait a minute, you guys are doing that right here. He's like, Yeah, we just bought this agitator last year, and this is now doing that process with, you know, in an automated fashion. But he was like, wow, nobody's ever understood this process as much as you do. I was like, well, I've been living it for 54 years with birthdays, and uh our family loves some good chocolate fudge cake, so it's uh it's a key process. And um, yeah, so those, you know, little tiny things like that that you know just make a connection between a customer and me or you know, understand the process as a whole. I always tell people though, if if you ever find me on a manufacturing line configuring something, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. Probably call the FBI, I'm probably there under duress. I should not ever be configuring a line. I can ask the questions, let the engineers do the real work.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

So the um as we're like I as I'm thinking about good salespeople and and just people that build relationships well and and business development, it's the generalist. And we hear this in the AI age right now, that generalists are like more valuable than the specialist because an AI will be more specialized than any specialist out there. But a generalist can can ask the right questions. And I mean that, you know, from a business development standpoint, is I've always respected that about you. I I think of myself as this that we can hold conversations with just about anyone on any topic, because you have enough information to get someone talking about it. Like you're not a big hunter, I don't think, but you can talk about hunting. Like I'm not a huge fisherman, but I know enough things about fishing that I can hold a conversation for probably two hours about fishing with an enthusiast. Right?

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:44

And that's that is a really remarkable skill. Um, and it's part of storytelling, it's part of marketing, but it's also part of business development, is that that general nature, that curiosity.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Yeah, I heard somebody said the other day that in today's world, you don't need to be the best, you need to be the most unique at what you do. And because there's a lot of people that can be scoring at a high level. But if you're really unique and that you're doing something that nobody else can do, that's really what's going to set you apart because everybody's kind of getting leveled up in different ways. But how are you standing out? And I think to use the the F-word, uh, flourishing really on your own. Um that's that's a key. So I've been I've been thinking about that. Like, what do I bring to the table that is really unique? And it might be that storytelling, it might be the ability to connect dots, it might be um my care for people, that I genuinely do care for people. Um and so that's that's something I've been just kind of rolling through in my mind found the day-to-day.

SPEAKER_04 48:59

Yeah, I think that's the right framing, right? It's it's that curiosity, it's that authenticity, and that's that's not teachable, that's like a character level thing that you were born with, you were born into, it was developed in you. Your experience through both college and and your career within the church, within the nonprofit community is has helped to shape that. And that's something that people can feel. So when you kind of think today, like given where your family's at, your parents, your your career, how do you define flourishing? Like, what does flourishing mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 49:38

I think that it's it's about leaving the place better than what you found it. So if it's a customer site, then they need to feel like they've just not wasted an hour or an hour and a half of their time. But the wow, okay, we're moving forward in our journey of digital maturity or cybersecurity awareness. And I'm so thankful that we were able to have that conversation with Graham Hatter and Nate. Like that just that makes a difference. Um it should be giving more than I'm taking. Um, you know, so if it's hanging out with my kids or in the neighborhood, whatever it might be, uh I wanna I want to give back more than than what we're what we're taking. And so like an example of that is when we moved into our new place now three years ago, on our corner lot, just outside that window, there is a huge uh pine tree. And I said, that should be a Christmas tree. Absolutely. We need to light that thing up. So I did what every good man would do is I went to Amazon and bought 500 lights, and it's about a 40-foot tree. So then I had to find a 40-foot pole that I could string the lights up on. And we declared light up night in the neighborhood, first weekend of December. We're gonna have cookies, we're gonna have hot chocolate, I'm gonna do my best uh Christmas vacation, plug in the lights. Here we go, count it down, hopefully it works. The very first year it didn't work because the kids had run underneath the tree and unplugged one of the extension cords, and it was the big three, two, one, nothing. And then yeah. But we've got plugged in and went go. Brooks, we're getting about 40 people that come out each year now in in December, and we get fire pits going. We're standing outside in the middle of the darkness of December around the Christmas tree, welcoming in the Holy Spirit and just saying, yeah, it may be cold, it may be winter, but we're here. And so that's I love that because it's really it's community building. And you know, we're we're seeing people and uh, you know, not traveling real far from meeting meeting everybody right where they are, but um but just a good a good time. So that's that's something that I'm proud of and um thankful that Bethany and my wife and I were able to host that little event each each year. So that's a that's a great thing.

SPEAKER_04 52:10

That's the community building, the connector aspect that also is one of those things that people seem to gravitate towards, or it's part of like their makeup and and where they come from, or it's something that they wish they could do, but they just haven't really taken that step yet. And that's a perfect example of you know, you just looked out your window and was like, this is a perfect opportunity, and now this has grown into not just a family tradition, but a neighborhood, a community tradition. And that's I think that I got signs printed this year. Perfect. But that's something so we can reuse them each year. Yeah. And you can start like, I know you. You're already thinking about branding it. Like, how do we create like an annual Christmas tree ornament?

SPEAKER_00 52:58

Well, that was the other thing is we told everybody to bring their own ornaments. So we we have a bin full of ornaments from the community that people have brought bought and brought. This year, one woman said, Oh, I was hoping you were gonna do the tree. And then when I saw the Facebook message, I was so excited. She's like, I went out and I went to HomeGoods immediately. I had to find the right ornament to put on the tree. And she said, This is like the highlight of my Christmas season. Um, you know, I was just like, Oh, thank you so much. That's just so kind of you. But she's like, you know, this is great. And she's like, My kids were asking, are we gonna do the tree this year? And they're a Jewish family. Like, you know, it's it's it's really just you know, bringing the community together.

SPEAKER_04 53:39

Yeah. Wow. No, it's phenomenal. What um is as you're kind of thinking about, you know, what 2026, 2027, the rest of this year going into summertime. Your your son's probably coming back from his first year of school. Kids are going into summer. You know, any any big plans, anything you're looking forward to in the next 12 months?

SPEAKER_00 54:04

We don't have any big plans. Um, have two kids working full-time almost in the summer. My daughter's already got a job, and Steven's lined up some work as well. Um, so they'll be out working or earning conversations about budgeting with them, which is new. You know, that idea of, all right, yeah, you're gonna be making some pretty good money here. Let's let's make sure the money works for you as well. Um you know, so it's just it's like like we said earlier, like there's no playbook for it. It's just simply moving ahead and hoping we make the right choices.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

Um yeah, just find other ways to be present with everybody. Um that's that's probably the the biggest goal while working and keeping keeping in shape.

SPEAKER_04 55:00

How's uh wheelbarrows? How's your journey with AI been? You know, from a work perspective, obviously there's all kinds of AI in the manufacturing aspect of things, but like just in your own personal work, um you know, what what kind of tools are you using? What do you find most useful? What are some tips and tricks that maybe our listeners haven't tried yet that you in your career are finding useful?

SPEAKER_00 55:27

I've actually used it as a partner to re-spark my creativity. Um so I've always been a creative person, like you said, you know, storyteller, musician.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

Um you know, just stupid. I have it here.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

I don't know where it is, but I wrote a series of songs on a little EP 36 years ago. Recorded them on a four-track at my house with my college roommate. Um I've taken that cassette and I bought a uh a little cassette digitizer, and I've digitized those songs, and then I dumped them into an AI music platform, and have been rewriting and recrafting those songs using an AI backing band and you know modern production. And it's been so much fun. Um, you know, I started, I started probably this time last year. I wanted to write a 25th anniversary song for my wife. Um, you know, big, big year, 25 years married. And so I I wrote out the lyrics, had some basic ideas of chord structure. Um I dumped that into the AI music platform and created a beautiful song for her called Love You by the Numbers. And it was all about 25 years of laughing tears, still catching your golden eye. You know, I went through all these different number things. And it was the opening line was I might not be a math man, but I know what adds upright. You know, so it's um, you know, lots of plays on that kind of stuff. But uh, you know, I've written songs for my nine-year-old son when he was learning the water evaporation process. Um gave him a nice uh laid-back rap, hip-hop, trap tune that he was like, cool, because he likes Juice World. Um I'll send you a bunch of these later, Bruce Brooks. You can you can check them out. But uh yeah, so that's been fun. Just, you know, re rekindling creativity with you know a full AI backing band and almost radio quality production on demand is unbelievable to me. But a new effort for me is I've been writing a book. Um I've always loved history and that type of thing. And I've had an idea for a kind of psychological thriller that spanned back to the years of the Soviet Union and tracked all the way to today. And the central idea is what if Bitcoin was not simply just a currency, but what if it was a weaponized piece that was developed by the Soviets to undermine Western society? And what if it was started in 1974 by a Soviet mathematician, economist, and intelligence officer? And so the story progresses from there. And at one point, you know, a big turn in the story is that the economist says, this is bad. We're we're undermining everything I need to go. He gets on a flight, and that flight is shot down. It's the flight that was shot down over Korea in early 80s. And so the idea of the book is basically that there are systems in place, but systems are sometimes even stronger than people. And so we'll get there. I'm I'm up to 34 chapters, uh, been using Claude to help me make structure. I had a whole notebook full of notes, dumped all that in in there, and then wanted historical accuracy in particular for all these different events, because there's the one of the central plot lines is that the protagonist uses airline disasters to cover up his his dirty work. And so you've got uh a couple of big airlines that go down that was actually all pointed back to this guy. But anyway, um so that's been fun. And that, you know, was able to even use uh a little bit of my time as a high school student in the Soviet Union, whenever I ended the Cold War. And uh so I retell a couple of those stories in there of the secondary economies in in Russia at the time in 1989. Um so good good fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:09

I'll I'll I'll shoot you a copy when I'm when I'm ready to have to tell the story of how you ended the Cold War now. You can't leave the listeners with that line and just slough it off like we can move on.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

Well, so in 1989, I was a a junior in high school. Uh and uh I got a call, and it was this company saying, we'd like you to apply to go on this diplomatic mission to the Soviet Union. And I thought, well, that sounds interesting. So I wrote an essay and had some series of interviews, ended up being selected as one of 20 students from the Pittsburgh area to go on a trip for a month and a half or so. Uh, we toured six Soviet cities with the goal of making you know goodwill, creating better relationships, and you know, kind of diffusing the tensions of Soviet-U.S. relations back in late 80s. So in the fall of 1989, after my trip, of course, the Berlin Will wall fell shortly after that in the early 90s, the Soviet Union was no more. So if I was sent on a diplomatic goodwill mission in the summer of 1989, and a KPI of that mission was to improve goodwill and ease tensions, then job done. So mission accomplished. That's one of those mission accomplished. Yes. So that's that's one of those things that you know an employer will say, is there anything else that we should know before, you know, end of our interview? And I'll say, well, I'm rather proud that I assisted in ending the Cold War. And I was like, what? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:03

Um, in the summer of 89, the Cold War ended, and I'm pretty proud of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

Um but I played my I was a big tennis player in high school, was over there, looked out, saw these clay courts, thought, oh, I need to go play some tennis. So I went over, was introduced to the master of the courts, and he's this dude in flip-flops and an unbuttoned Hawaiian short shirt. And I'm like, this is their tennis, bro? You gotta be kidding me. But he's standing at center court. I can't get a ball past the guy. Just can't do it. And he's he's like just really, really good. Then he all of a sudden he starts yelling, nyet, yet, nyet, nyit, and he brings me over to him and he takes my racket, changes my grip, puts it down on my hip, shows me how to change my backhand. I now have a powerful backhand, which my tennis coach had been working on with me for a year and a half, but had not succeeded, what this guy did in five minutes. He brings out his top student, 12-year-old kid. I'm like, now it's time. Now it's time for this kid to learn what's what American tennis is about.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

Here we go. I lost 6-0, 6-1. Got one game off the kid. Barely.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:24

They said, Will you come back tomorrow and play again? I was like, Yeah, you better believe I'm coming back tomorrow. I'm gonna play again. So I came back the next day. The whole tennis facility is buzzing with people. I there's like food being sold, there's just all these people. And we walk past the courts where we played the day before. And I said to my translator, Natasha, I said, Where are we going? She said, To the court.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

I said, What court? She said, center court. I was like, okay. And we're walking up, and I was like, Who's playing today?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:54

She says, You are. We get in, and it's a center court with probably, I don't know, not as big as the U.S. Open, but let's say half the size of a US Open, but with judges, chairs, and ball boys, and people selling food and and benches, and so I'm playing the kid again. And in front of fans. I look in front of fans. Because in translation, I told them that I was co-captain of my high school tennis team, which they took as he's the captain of the United States tennis team. So this was a propaganda event that I clearly was just walked right into, and the kid destroyed me again in three sets 6-0, 6-1, 6-0. Like just like a marriage. But it was the best match I ever lost. And I found out that his the master of the courts was the captain of the Soviet tennis team.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:56

He was no slouch. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

And he and his wife then left the Soviet Union, went to Germany, and now his son is number four in the world.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:11

Yeah. And in all of the American, the USA tennis program is forever upset with that kid that in '89 said he was the captain of the UST and got waxed by a 12-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:29

Oh, destroyed. Yeah. Best match I ever lost, though, because everybody was cheering. It had to be beautiful. It was just it was amazing. I just I'd never played on clay before. It was just it was a disaster. But yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:44

So such a good story. So um, you know, just for the listeners, you know, outside of you know what you're doing creatively with AI, um, anything else work related that you find AI to be useful for other than What we hear all the time, the average, oh, it helps me with my emails, you know, and write better briefs. Anything more creative than that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:08

We're using AI to help drive quality so that the machine learning can see so many different points of data that it would take humans so long to build a digest. So if a run of a product is 45 minutes from raw material to finished good, like humans can barely interject in there to change something. But we found ways that by using these quality tools and checking that we can reduce scrap, reduce waste, improve the process, and make our customers more money in the end by simply just producing better, better products. And that's true for everything from dog food to baked goods to cars to chemicals, lots of different things along the way. We've also been using it a lot to help capture tribal knowledge within a company. There's been a real change in kind of the aging of workforce. So the manufacturing worker of today, most of them are older and they're going to be leaving the workforce soon. And it's tough for, you know, you and I talk to our sons about, you know, hey, you should go into manufacturing. I kudos to your kid that he's in the trades. That's awesome. Um, but a lot of kids today just are like, nah, I want to get a job. I want to go to college. They don't even know what college is. They just think they need to do it, and so they go. Um, but we're helping to capture that tribal knowledge of Earl who's been in the plant for 35 years and can walk in and can sniff the air and listen to the sounds of the plant and know exactly what's going on. Um, you know, without anything digital, he just knows it. Um and I've I've met so many Earls in my journeys, like these guys just they're hard workers, they know what they're doing. But when you introduce data to prove that Earl knows what he's doing, but then actually capture it so that when Earl leaves, they don't have a huge dip in their productivity and in their understanding of quality or how to make a product, um, those kind of things are pretty amazing. Um that kind of thing. And I'm excited to see what happens as agentics get onto the shop floor. Um, it's it's always been a tough environment to have computers and lots of input just because the nature of manufacturing it's it's rugged and you can't type if you've got heavy gloves on your hands or that kind of thing. Um but just to be able to say to your agent, help me adjust line three. Let's make sure that we're getting the most energy efficient work out of that. What can we do to adjust that? And then have the agent looking at the data be able to say, make these adjustments. Um, you know, that's pretty cool, or advances in scheduling to make sure that the workforce is lined up properly and queued up with the right tools and the right resources available for them. Um, quick changes online or things like that. That's it's gonna be things that you and I can't even describe today. It's all moving so fast. Um, you know, in three years, there's gonna be stuff that either of us could ever have dreamed of, and we're heavily in the dream zone of all this stuff today. Um it's just is it's moving so fast.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:44

Do you think it will be voice activated as a primary interface, even on a shop floor where it's loud, potential dirty environment? Do you see like noise canceling airpod like earbuds that you can communicate with your agent even in a noise-canceled, you know, noisy environment where you can kind of turn off and on that transparency mode and communicate with your agent, send it on a mission while you're hands-free? Is it is that the interface of the future for that environment as well?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:17

It could be. Um, you know, we we could see things that implants have come a long way as well. I mean, where you're getting into ways that you know we can't even imagine neural implants or other indicators, even just the gestures that you can do with iPhones these days, you know, to hang up a call or move things forward. You know, there's lots of interesting things that are out there. Um we may be giving instructions to robots to do things as well. There could be ways that as more either humanoid or non-humanoid robots come into the play of things, they might do tasks that are the dirtier, more dangerous things that we're accompanied to do today, but you still need a human to give input to make sure that it's carried out correctly, which could expand capacity and um drive profits for a company, not by eliminating jobs, but by actually multiplying capacity. We we have trouble finding the right types of skilled workers today, oftentimes. But I think that where AI and robotics are heading may help to accelerate that gap and you know provide more stability as opposed to just pure chaos for for manufacturing. People think, oh, that robot's gonna take my job. You're probably not gonna want your job in another five years if that's your attitude. And this robot may actually help sustain that company and keep it moving forward. Um, or with your guidance, do the same thing. And it's so wide open, it's it's hard to speculate, really.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:01

I believe that humanoid robots, we're gonna start seeing more and more on the manufacturing floor. It's just it's coming, right? It's already here in some cases. BMW, Tesla, of course, you know, with Optimus and what they're building. But there's you know, figure robots, there's there's a bunch of manufacturers out there, there's Unitry, you know, Chinese companies. There were like thousands of them over there that are building amazing technology. Um, Boston Dynamics, you and I have followed them for freaking decades, it seems like, all the way from DARPA projects and seeing what they built with like the mules and things to now what they have with these crazy like multi-jointed humanoid-like robots and what they're able to do. I think we're gonna see more of that. I also think that we're going to start with humanoid, and I think we're going to find that four-armed or six-armed or eight-armed humanoid-like robots, and maybe feet aren't the best things, but the more of the wheel balancing, one-wheel style, you know what I mean? Like dual-wheel gyroscope balanced, is going to be a better, smoother operation on the plant floor. So we're going to find these like highly specialized robots that, you know, you see Amazon right now with like how they use their tugs and how they're just moving packages around to warehouses and putting them down chutes and they're going out. Like when I worked at FedEx, we had these package chutes that had six-side scan tunnels. So like a package would go across. It didn't matter the orientation of the barcode. It went across a glass panel. So even if the barcode was face down, it would shoot across that, it would scan it. Based on the scan, these little like pushers would push them down different ramps. Like this one went to Indianapolis, that one went to Columbus for distribution hubs, and then they went out to smaller trucks and smaller trucks, right? Yep. And um, that type of automation's been there since the 2000s, like early, like late 90s when we were doing that stuff. So what we're seeing today in the fact that you can get a package in a day, you know, next day from Amazon, like really obscure shit that doesn't like it's not close to me. It can't be. Like, I don't know how they're doing it, but they get it to me. Simply amazing. Um, we're gonna see these like differentiation of robots. So like I hear humanoid because doors, stairs, scaffolding, all of these things were made for humans. So it makes sense to have the form factor of a human, but we're going to find that different types of tasks are better approached and and more successfully accomplished with the with different form factors that are going to become even more specialized.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:01

Completely agree. And it, you know, it could be I heard different people talk about in the medical field, you know, surgeon bots that will be able to make more precise surgeries than humans could, but they don't need to be a person with legs. That just needs to be a articulating arm with a scalpel or laser, and you know, to be able to do its thing and cross over the table and come at you know different angles with you know things I can't even imagine. But yeah, I agree. It's not going to be necessarily C3PO doing uh surgery on somebody.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:37

Um so no, like what's more stable, uh, a track-based R2D2 can base or a C3PO type of you know legs, like the the more track-based, like think about like a bobcat or something, you know what I mean? Like having like a a skid loader type of like base is very stable. So it's probably when you're talking about surgery and things, now you're talking about like, well, we we want the most stable thing ever. Exactly. Right, and infinitely more precise and stable than a human hand can be. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:20

Like it has to be. Yep. Super fascinating. Um is there anything that feels unfinished for you, like heading into the next two years in a good way that you're trying to wrap up?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:33

Um that's a great question. I guess I never really feel finished in my learning and growth as a husband and father.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:50

That's probably where it comes most. Like every day is different, like we talked about earlier. And I feel like I can always love my wife more, be a better father to my kids. Um, you know, those are those are definitely things that are unfinished, but that I'm really excited to see what's going to be happening in our next you know, next stages of life. I'm caring for my parents on a more regular basis. They're in a great place getting taken care of and assisted, but you know, my role with them is changing, and same with my wife's parents. Um, you know, but we're also bringing up our kids, so it's that sandwich generation kind of a place for us. And um I've learned so much about elder care, and you know, that's a that's an area of our culture, I think, that's really lacking. Like um a lot of the elder care models are based on stuff that was 40 years ago, 50 years ago. I think that's a place for that's open for first a lot of learning and then probably some disruption of just how can we do it better, that's more honoring and more gracious and actually gets things taken care of. Like the way that my parents are given their health care is doctor appointment after doctor appointment, and mobility is a challenge, and that just doesn't serve them very well. So we start talking about like an agentic physician or a robot that can come to them and actually give quality care, like that's huge. Um, and can really make a big, a big difference. Um, so yeah, I think family things are probably what I'm most focused on is unfinished, but excited to see it grow.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:39

Fantastic. And what would your future self thank you for what you're doing right now or what you're not doing right now?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:02

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:06

I think just being steady with my kids and with my wife and in our community, not giving up on people in the midst of accelerating technology, just remembering that people is where it starts, and that that's the most, you know, an important piece of all this stuff that's easy to get distracted with a screen in your hand or a flying car that will be driving my youngest to school someday. Um, but it's all about the people, and it's um that thing that you and I both share of being able to connect with people, tell stories, create more stories, um, and celebrate those stories. We have a we have a saying in our house that you are a smith. You're a child of God, and you're a smith. Those two markers are really, really important for your life. If you can make sure you hold on to those two things, then that's gonna be a big difference.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:10

Um, so I think that's to remember you know the the principles of of faith and family.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:21

That's that's really it.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:23

Fantastic. That's beautiful and a great way to end. For our audience, if they want to get connected with you, what are the best ways? I'll put links in the show notes to anything you say right now, but what are what are the ways and the means?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:35

Um LinkedIn is great. If it's anything professional, um happy to help out anybody or just you know have a conversation about someone I was just at a celebration of life service last weekend with a guy that kind of mentored me and understanding what sales and business was about, and he just passed away. And uh, but it was a joyous place to see him there. And I I had the thought there, like I want to make sure that I'm available to other young folks that like when he met with me and told me sales is great, but it's also the hardest thing you'll ever do. Um, yeah, so happy to do that. Uh I'll give you my uh Gmail address as well. You can put that as a link down below for email contact that's unwork related if you want to talk about music or psycho spy thriller novels. Uh be happy to talk about that. But yeah, all good. Brooks, I really appreciate the invite to come on and uh it's always good to have a conversation.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:45

Fantastic. We appreciate your time, and thanks everyone for listening today on the new F Word Podcast brought to you by Baryons. If you're interested in flourishing further and having an AI companion that can help you do so, we've built the first AI flourishing partner at Baryons.com. It is free to try, and we recommend you give it a shot if you haven't already. Thank you so much for your time, and thank you everyone for listening.